J. David Irwin
Education
He received the B.E.E. degree from Auburn University, Auburn, AL, and the M.S.
and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville.
Career Positions
In 1967 he joined Bell Telephone Laboratories, Inc., Holmdel, NJ, as a member
of the Technical Staff and was made a Supervisor in 1968. He joined Auburn
University in 1969 as an Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering. He was
made an Associate Professor in 1972, Associate Professor and Head of the
Department in 1973, and Professor and Head in 1976. From 1982 to 1984 he was
Professor and Head of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. In 1993, he
was named Earle C. Williams Eminent Scholar and Head. He served as Head of the
Department for 36 years. He began teaching full time in 2010 as the Earle C.
Williams Eminent Scholar in Electrical and Computer Engineering and retired in
2015. He is currently Professor and Department Head Emeritus, and he continues
to teach in the Department on a part time basis.
Academic Administration Positions.
Three years after joining Auburn University as an Assistant Professor, he became Head of the Electrical Engineering Department and made dramatic changes in every aspect of the Department’s operation. He doubled the faculty to 28 with an attendant increase in research, and he led and supported the faculty in their involvement in professional activities, which resulted in a faculty with 14 IEEE Fellows, several presidents of professional societies, editors of technical Journals/Transactions and General Chairs for technical conferences held throughout the world. In addition, he was able to convince the University and State to build a new Electrical Engineering building and develop a microelectronics center, which at the time was only the second such facility in the Southeastern U.S. Furthermore, the Computer Science program in the College of Engineering was developed under his leadership as well as the first accredited undergraduate Wireless Engineering program in the nation.
Professional Activities
Dr. Irwin has served the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, Inc.
(IEEE) Computer Society as a member of the Education Committee and as Education
Editor of Computer. He has served as Chairman of the Southeastern
Association of Electrical Engineering Department Heads and the National
Association of Electrical Engineering Department Heads and is past president of
both the IEEE Industrial Electronics Society and the IEEE Education Society. He
is a life member of the IEEE Industrial Electronics Society AdCom
and has served as a member of the Oceanic Engineering Society AdCom. He served for two years as Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE
Transactions on Industrial Electronics. He has served on the Executive
Committee of the Southeastern Center for Electrical Engineering Education, Inc.
and was president of the organization in 1983/84. He has served as an IEEE Adhoc Visitor for ABET Accreditation teams. He has served
as a member of the IEEE Educational Activities Board, and was the Accreditation
Coordinator for IEEE in 1989. He has served as a member of numerous IEEE
committees including the Lamme Medal Award Committee,
the Mulligan Education Medal Committee, the Fellow Committee, the Nominations
and Appointments Committee, the Admission and Advancement Committee, the
Education Society's McGraw Hill/Jacob Millman Award
Committee, and he chaired the Undergraduate and Graduate Teaching Award
Committee. He has served as a member of the Board of Directors of the IEEE
Press. He has also served as a member of the Secretary of the Army's Advisory
Panel for ROTC Affairs and Nominations Chairman for the National Electrical
Engineering Department Heads Association. He also served as a member of the
Board of Governors and past President of Eta Kappa
Nu, the National Electrical and Computer Engineering Honor Society. He has been
and continues to be heavily involved in the management of several international
conferences sponsored by the IEEE Industrial Electronics Society. Some recent
examples are-- General Co-Chair for IECON'05, Raleigh, and IECON ’10,
Phoenix. Honorary Co-Chair for
IECON'07, Taipei, IECON ’11 Melbourne, IECON ’12, Montreal, ISIE
’13, Taipei and ISIE '14, Istanbul. He served as Co-Chair of the
International Advisory Committee for IECON ’17, Beijing, Chair of the
International Advisory Board for IESES ’18, New Zealand, Honorary Co-Chair for IECON ’18, Washington D.C. and
Honorary Chair for IECON ’21 Toronto. He is past chair of the IEEE James
H. Mulligan Jr. Education Medal committee and the IEEE-IES Distinguished
Lecture Committee. He currently
serves on the IEEE Awards Board Nominations and Appointments Committee and is
chair of the IEEE-HKN Distinguished service Award Committee.
Publications
He is author and co-author of numerous publications, papers, patents and
presentations including ten textbooks, some of which have been translated into
foreign languages. One of the texts is currently in the 12th edition
and has been used nationally and internationally for 35 years. These texts,
that span a wide spectrum of engineering subjects from basic circuit analysis
to cybersecurity, are published by Macmillan Publishing Company, Prentice Hall
Book Company, Pearson Book Company, John Wiley and Sons Book Company, CRC Press
and the IEEE Press. He is also the Editor-in-Chief of a large handbook and
Co-Editor-in-Chief of another, both of which are published by the CRC Press. He
has also served as Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Transactions on Industrial
Electronics as well as a Series Editor for both the CRC Press and the
Academic Press and in those capacities oversaw the development of 23 books.
In addition to his engineering textbooks, he has authored a
book for general audiences entitled Practical
and Inspirational Guidelines for Winning
published by Resource Publications, which is an Imprint of Wipf
and Stock Publishers.
Business Activities
Research, conducted in cooperation with colleagues at Auburn, has resulted in
the development of new technologies that have formed the basis for the
establishment of two start-up companies. One of these corporations is PureWave Inc., and the initial product is a world-record
Direct Digital Synthesizer (DDS) chip that is faster, more compact and uses approximately
one-seventh the power of the chip that held the previous record. The other
company is Aunigma Network Solutions Corp., that
supplies multiple network threat protection plus unmatched performance compared
to competing internet security offerings. Currently, he serves as Chairman and
CEO of Digital Analog Integration, Inc., which designs high-speed, low-power
integrated circuits.
Awards
He is a Life-Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers
(IEEE) , a Fellow of the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE), a
Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and a
Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors.. He received an IEEE Centennial
Medal in 1984. He was awarded the Bliss Medal by the Society of American
Military Engineers in 1985. He received the IEEE Industrial Electronics
Society's Anthony J. Hornfeck Outstanding Service
Award in 1986, was named IEEE Region III (U. S. Southeastern Region)
Outstanding Engineering Educator in 1989. In 1991 he received a Meritorious
Service Citation from the IEEE Educational Activities Board, the 1991 Eugene Mittelmann Achievement Award from the IEEE Industrial
Electronics Society, and the 1991 Achievement Award from the IEEE Education
Society. In 1992, he was named a Distinguished Auburn Engineer. In 1993, he
received the IEEE Education Society's McGraw Hill/Jacob Millman
Award, and in 1998 he was the recipient of the IEEE Undergraduate Teaching
Award. In 2000, he received an IEEE Third Millennium Medal and the IEEE Richard
M. Emberson Award. In 2001, he received the American
Society for Engineering Education's (ASEE) ECE Distinguished Educator Award. He
was made an Honorary Professor, Institute for Semiconductors, Chinese Academy
of Science, Beijing, China in 2004. In 2005, he
received the IEEE Education Society's Meritorious Service Award. In 2006, he
received the IEEE Educational Activities Board Vice President's Recognition
Award, in 2007 he was given the Auburn University Presidential Award for
Excellence and the Diplome of Honour,
University of Patras, Greece. In 2008 he received the
IEEE-IES TC on Factory Automation's Lifetime Achievement Award, and in 2010 he
received the ECE Department Heads Association’s Robert M. Janowiak Outstanding Leadership and Service Award. He is
also the recipient of the 2013 IEEE James H. Mulligan Jr. Education Medal, and
was elected to the State of Alabama Engineering Hall of Fame in 2015. In
addition, he was elected to the following honor societies: Sigma Xi, Phi Kappa
Phi, Tau Beta Pi, Eta Kappa Nu, Pi Mu Epsilon, and Omicron Delta Kappa.
In 2009, in recognition of the numerous contributions made to Auburn University, the Board of Trustees declared that the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department’s conference room would be named the J. David Irwin Conference Room. In 2010, the IEEE Industrial Electronics Society created the J. David Irwin Early Career Award in recognition of the many contributions made to the development of young professionals. The award is given annually to outstanding IEEE members throughout the world.
Auburn
University
Samuel Ginn
College of Engineering
Electrical and Computer
Engineering Department